I do honestly take your point about positive thinking, I do.

But I’d change that to ’some’ not ‘many’..or at least limit yourself to referring to the western world - although I have my reservations there.

You’re right that we should not make the mistake of thinking everything is always getting worse, but I would argue that things are not getting better quickly enough.

Then you also have to look at whether racism, sexism and homophobia are falling in terms explicit or implicit. Laws don’t change peoples prejudices.

Take the Shilpa Shetty debacle - Channel 4 were absolutely right to say there was no overt racism..there didn’t need to be, most discrimination is low level, difficult to define and hidden beneath the guise of other things.

Then there’s homophobia of the evangelist church in Africa…

And to suggest that sexism is becoming ‘increasingly unacceptable in most parts of the world’ is plain wrong and more than a little complacent.

Most people in the world wouldn’t even understand what you mean - I’ve heard men, in many parts of the world, argue theat they’re not sexist, they believe that women are equal and anyway the reason why women don’t get beaten in their family is because it doesn’t work, it doesn’t make them do as their told any better, it just makes them grumpy.

Yes, lets look forward, yes lets celebrate the achievements and the progress that we’ve made but don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re nearly there…we’re only just beginning.